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Top Linkbuilding Takeaways – PubCon 2007

To analyze the effectiveness of a page you’re getting a link on, check Yahoo Site Explorer or use MSN’s tools to determine if there are any inbound links to the EXACT page you’re hoping to receive a link from.

Visit this site to find result volumes (and by implication, difficulty of ranking) for particular keywords.

To buy links, visit the blog directories Greg mentioned above and search for blogs with adsense units below the fold.This is an indication that the site owner is looking to monetize his/her blog, but those units are likely producing very few clicks.Offer a yearly amount because it will look like a larger chunk of change than a smaller amount split up on a monthly basis.

Instead of buying links, barter.Give stuff away or give discounts on products to certain sectors (the latter is a particularly effective technique in the online education niche).

Why you should spend the extra money on a beautiful design: It builds credibility, and even an extra 1-2 links per month that you accrue as a result of this trust will pay for the additional up-front cost in the long run.

Blog about Google products & they might blog about you.

Create awards.

Have a great how-to article?Submit it to Work.com and get a few quality backlinks.They often insert these into their Business.com guides as well.

When evaluating directories, check the Google cache date—a recent one is a good indicator of credibility.An old one is a poor indicator of credibility.

During its most recent update, Google did NOT reduce PageRank for ALL link sellers/link brokers.Doing so would have tipped them off, and the same brokers would have sprouted up with new networks once they were sure which of the old ones had been “outed.”

Google rarely, if ever, penalizes sites manually on a one-off basis.They instead prefer to adjust their algorithm to spot sites using similar techniques, as this is far more scalable.